Field
Exemplary embodiments relate to a liquid crystal display and a method for manufacturing the same.
Discussion of the Background
Currently, flat panel displays are often used in display devices. Meanwhile, as the flat panel display, various display devices, such as a liquid crystal display, an organic light emitting diode display, a plasma display, an electrophoretic display, and an electrowetting display may be used.
The liquid crystal display is one of the flat panel displays which have been most widely used currently, and includes two sheets of display panels in which an electrode is formed, and a liquid crystal layer interposed therebetween. In the liquid crystal display, a voltage is applied to the field generating electrode to generate an electric field in the liquid crystal layer, and an orientation of liquid crystal molecules of the liquid crystal layer is determined and polarization of incident light is controlled based on the generated electric field to display an image.
Among the liquid crystal displays, a liquid crystal display which is being currently widely used has a structure in which field generating electrodes, such as a pixel electrode and a common electrode, are provided in two display panels, respectively. Meanwhile, the mainstream of the liquid crystal display has a structure in which one display panel (hereinafter, referred to as ‘thin film transistor array panel’) is arranged with a plurality of thin film transistors and pixel electrodes in a matrix form and the other display panel (hereinafter, referred to as ‘common electrode display panel’) is formed with red, green, and blue color filters, and the entire surface of the display panel is covered with a common electrode.
The liquid crystal display tends to suffer from misalignment since it is difficult to accurately align the pixel electrode and the color filter, which are formed in different display panels. To solve the above problem, a color filter-on-array (“COA”), in which a color filter and a pixel electrode are formed on the same display panel, has been suggested.
A gap between the liquid crystal layers interposed between the two display panels is called a cell gap, in which the cell gap affects the entire operational characteristics of a liquid crystal display, such as a response speed, a contrast ratio, a viewing angle, luminance uniformity, and the like. However, when the cell gap is non-uniform, a uniform image may not be displayed over the entire screen and thus, image quality may be reduced. Therefore, to keep the uniform cell gap over the entire area on a substrate, a spacer is formed on one side of two substrates. As the spacer, a column spacer (CS) has been mainly used.
For process simplification, the light blocking member, such as a black matrix, and the spacer may be simultaneously formed. To simultaneously form the light blocking member, the spacer, and the like, there is a need to implement a multi-step process.
In the related art, a light blocking member and a spacer are used as one material, and the light blocking member and the spacer are formed using a mask which may implement multi-transmittance.
However, the mask which may implement the multi-transmittance is difficult to manufacture and has a complicated structure, which results in increased manufacturing costs of the liquid crystal display, such that it is difficult to secure thickness uniformity for the light blocking member and a column spacer.
The above information disclosed in this Background section is only for enhancement of understanding of the background of the invention and, therefore, it may contain information that does not form the prior art that is already known in this country to a person of ordinary skill in the art.